Forging connections optconnect.

• Author: Haraldsen, Tom
• Position: Enter OptConnect

Although the world has become increasingly technology-connected over the past decade, gaps remain within that coverage, leaving areas where connectivity has been missing. The evolution of ATMs, from banks to businesses, brought with it a new challenge for many retailers--the ability to connect to a financial institution in a portable, flexible way.

Enter OptConnect, part of the Grant Victor family of companies, which has grown over the past five years into the nation's leading provider of wireless connectivity solutions for ATMs. OptConnect was created because of a need of many convenience store owners--a business segment that Grant Victor was involved with at the time.

"As we were operating as a vendor, we realized there was a huge miss in connectivity and a chance to provide that service," says Chris Baird, executive vice president of the Kaysville-based business. "There are an estimated 500,000 ATMs in the United States, with about 60 percent of those in the retail sector. The traditional communication method for those retailers was to purchase a phone line and have it hardwired into an ATM location. That made it a very rigid connection, without any portability or flexibility."

OptConnect changed that by providing hardware that allows ATM cellular connectivity through the use of modems. "I explain it this way--we basically make cell phones for ATMs," Baird says. "OptConnect works with three large cellular providers--Verizon, AT&T and Sprint--to connect customers to their banks. We have customers throughout the country. We've also expanded into Canada and parts of the Caribbean."

So why did it take so long for someone to solve this problem of connectivity, given the history...